When I arrived at the convention centre at the late hour of 10am things were relatively quiet. I spent the morning checking out some of the sponsor lounges and then hit the exhibition floor. The exhibits for the film and interactive portions of the conference share the same space, which makes for a neat mix of exhibitors some of whom you might not normally see at an interactive and web trade show, but whose products and services are still relevant.
The theme of the day - for me at least - was social change. Of the keynotes so far, Valerie Casey’s address, “Systems Design Inspiration” has by far been my favourite. Casey’s presentation focused on fostering sustainable practices through systems design and included specific tactics of implementing change. Casey’s approach included, examining issues in a larger context, creating the right measurement of success and acknowledgment of the concept that it is necessary to change the purpose/goal in order to effect change. In closing Casey observed that the Interactive community has to be the leader in making change and called for audience member to step up to the plate.
I followed up the key note with the very well attended Crowd Sourcing Innovative Social Change. The session was held in a packed room with a very enthusiastic audience who were given the opportunity to participate in some real-time crowd sourcing. Joining the in-person attendees were a fair number of followers participating in the discussion from around the world.
The HTML 5 Accessibility panel included presenters Cynthia Shelly from Microsoft and John Foliot from Stanford. Along with the Designing for CMS and Objective C Crash Course for Developers this was amongst the more technical presentations I’ve attended. Shelly and Foliot demo-ed the still in development HTML 5 and provided a fairly detailed tour of the new document semantics. The discussion branched into the idea that these technical updates should be accompanied by a shift in attitude towards providing a better quality browsing experience for the disabled.
I finished up the day at the 13th Annual SXSWi web awards - a semi-swanky night of fun held at the Hiton. Our host for the evening, Doug Benson, did a fantastic (occasionally abrasive) job on the mic.
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